Brown has turned down several offers to adapt her books over the years. "Some excellent books have been made into excellent movies, but just as often the film renditions were bad," she said. "For decades I've been developing a 'voice' my readers recognize and expect. Lane Bishop approached me with a full understanding and appreciation of that voice."

"Witness" centers on idealistic public defender Kendall Deaton, who discovers a dark secret in the forest near her small South Carolina town. It leads her to turn state's witness against her white supremacist ex-husband and father-in-law as she struggles to discover whom she can trust.

The film will be one of the first features from TwinStar, which owns a library of original stories and options on film and literary properties aimed at a wide audience.

TwinStar is repped by Paradigm and Steven Beer of Greenberg Traurig in New York. Brown is repped by the Maria Carvainis Agency.